1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



207 



make nuclei until his bees have built natu- 

 ral swarm cells, unless he uses the grafting 

 method. 



The nuclei filled two cars; but in one car 

 the entrances were not well closed, and the 

 bottom-boards were not nailed with suffi- 

 ciently long nails. As a consequence we 

 lost many bees. 



When we unloaded we found about 100 

 nuclei in this car smothered, presumably 

 because they contained too many old bees 

 and had not sufficient clustering -space. 

 But, despite all these errors, one car of bees 

 which was unloaded in good territory made 

 some profit, while the other could have 

 done nearly as well under conditions with 

 an equally favorable honey-flow. 



I am going to send another car of bees 

 this spring from^ the same point from which 

 I shipped last year; but I shall wait and tell 

 more about it after judging my methods by 

 results. While I know of shipments of last 

 year which were less successful than my 

 own, I also know of others that have been 

 highly profitable, and believe all of them 

 can be made so. 



Morgan, Utah, Feb. 22. 



HAND'S SYSTEM OF SWARM CONTROL. 



How the Basic Principles of the System can 



be Used with Ordinary Hives with Fast 



Bottoms; it is as Good as or Better than 



Some of the Shak^-swarm Systems. 



BY J. E. CRANE. 



I was somewhat disappointed after read- 

 ing Mr. Hand's system of swarm control in 

 the late numbers of Gleanings for 1910, 

 and the editor's comments on that system, 

 and the evident success of the system in 

 the hands of an expert, to remeniber that 

 my hives were all great clumsy chaff hives 

 with fast bottom-boards, and that, so far as 

 I was concerned, Hand switch-boards were 

 out of the question. So I have been study- 

 ing his system to see what good I could get 

 frorn it without his switch-board. 



First, and as a sort of cornerstone to the 

 system, he tells us to get all colonies very 

 strong early in the season — see page 719 of 

 last year. This, certainly, is a good thing, 

 and just as valuable to those who do not use 

 a switch-board as to those who do. This 

 scheme of strong colonies in the spring was 

 recommended by Langstroth some fifty 

 years ago, and by all intelligent bee-keep- 

 ers ever since. To secure this he tells us 

 that all colonies not strong enough to enter 

 supers at the beginning of the harvest 

 should be united with some other colony. 

 Surely it does not require a switch-board to 

 do this. I think there is a better way, how- 

 ever, than to unite weak colonies with oth- 

 ers, as I shall try to show later. 



Next he tells us, as another cornerstone to 

 "swarm control," "to prevent strong colo- 

 nies from contracting the swarming fever 

 before the main honey-flow we give them a 

 full upper story of empty combs above a 



queen-excluder." Good advice, certainly, 

 with his system or any other; and, better, 

 it doesn't require a switch-board to practice 

 it. Tbis was advised by the editor of 

 Gleanings a few years ago, but I fear it 

 has not been fully appreciated. I practiced 

 it on some twenty colonies, but they were 

 not all very strong the past season, and I 

 used supers filled with frames of wire foun- 

 dation instead of drawn combs, as we were 

 short of combs. Only two out of the twen- 

 ty offered to swarm so far as I remember; 

 but, goodness me! didn't they pile the hon- 

 ey into the sections after the supers of drawn 

 combs were removed and replaced by supers 

 of sections, and all without a switch-board! 



Next he tells us that when the harvest is 

 in full swing, and the top story is about 

 half full of uncapiied honey (assuming that 

 each colony is provided with a switch-board) 

 we will begin operations for the control of 

 swarming (I thought the extra super on top 

 was to control swarming), by placing the 

 top story, bees and all, down upon the va- 

 cant side of the switch-board, and exchange 

 the central comb for a comb of brood and 

 bees, including the queen. 



Now, this looks like a very simple thing 

 to do, especially removing a comb from the 

 super and exchanging it for a comb of 

 brood, "including the queen." In practice 

 I have found this removing the queen is 

 not always so easy a matter when a hive is 

 crammed with bees as it is at the height of 

 the season, especially if you have hybrid 

 bees or old q-ieens. As a rule I had rather 

 shake the bees from two or three brood- 

 chambers at the height of the season than 

 find one queen in a crowded colony — at least 

 /can do it quicker. Surely it would be far 

 easier to shake the bees from the two colo- 

 nies of the twenty mentioned above than to 

 look up the queens of the whole twenty as 

 required by the Hand system. 



As a "further aid to swarm control" he 

 tells us that he raises the back end of his 

 covers during very hot weather, which is a 

 very proper thing to do. But this does not 

 require a switch-board to do it, and is just 

 as helpful in preventing swarming in a hive 

 without a switch board as one with that 

 useful adjunct. I have been in the habit of 

 raising my covers for more than twenty- 

 five years in hot weather. 



There can be no question, I think, but 

 that there would be a decided advantage in 

 being able to return all hatching bees auto- 

 matically to the new hive after removing 

 the queen and the mature bees. This can 

 be accomplished, however, by placing the 

 brood-chamber near the entrance of the new 

 swarm, and then once in seven or eight 

 days shaking all that can be spared in front 

 of the new hive. The population can also 

 be reinforced by giving combs of hatching 

 brood. 



But we are told by Mr. Hand that there is 

 a loss of honey by shaking, or if the bees 

 are otherwise unduly excited, of from five to 

 ten pounds per day for a day or two. I beg 

 leave to differ with him on' this point, pro- 



